METHOD OF INFORMING A SUBSCRIBER IN A RADIO TELEPHONE SYSTEM OF FACILITIES ACTIVATED FOR THE SUBSCRIBER STATION

Abstract: The invention relates to a method in a radio system, comprising a subscriber database (202) containing data (Y, 203) informing of facilities activated for the subscriber, exchanges (201), base stations (205) and subscriber stations (206). In order to keep the subscriber stations (206) informed of the facilities activated therefor, the facility data (Y, 203) for a given subscriber station (206) are read from the subscriber data base (202) of the radio system and said data (Y, 203) are sent as a facility data message through a base station (205) via a radio path (207) to the subscriber station (206), the subscriber station (206) receives said message containing the facility data (Y) and presents these data (Y, 208) to the subscriber.

Description: METHOD OF INFORMING A SUBSCRIBER IN A RADIO TELEPHONE SYSTEM OF FACILITIES ACTIVATED FOR THE SUBSCRIBER STATION The invention relates to a method in a radio system, comprising a subscriber database containing data informing of facilities activated for the sub¬ scriber, exchanges, base stations and subscriber sta¬ tions, in order to keep the subscriber stations in¬ formed of the facilities activated therefor. A typical feature of subscriber stations of ra- dio telephone systems, i.e. radio telephones or other such terminals, is that the subscriber stations move within and from a network area, being sometimes out¬ side the coverage area of the network and thus loos¬ ing the connection with the network. Due to the fact that a radio telephone may move and operate in the radio network area of several different operators and that there is no data communication between the ex¬ changes of said radio networks, terminals, i.e. radio telephones moving at times in the area of other radio networks, may loose connection with their own actual home radio telephone network. For this reason, a ra¬ dio telephone and its user dispose of data of faci¬ lities and services activated for radio telephones which are different from respective data contained in the exchange of the home radio telephone network of the radio telephone. Another typical feature of radio terminals is that they are used periodically, which means that they are at times switched on and in communication with their own radio telephone network and at times switched off, closed, and thus without communication with the radio telephone network. Additionally, radio telephones may sometimes loose connection with the radio telephone network, because a radio telephone power source, typically a battery, runs out of power. Furthermore, one radio telephone may have several users in some cases, a typical example of which is common use of a radio telephone in a company. On account of the above facts, there is also a risk that a radio terminal and its user, on the one hand, and an exchange of a radio telephone system and an associated database, on the other hand, have dif¬ ferent information of which operations have been pro¬ grammed in said terminal to be implemented by the ex- change of the radio telephone network. The user of a radio terminal, for instance, may then believe that no call transfer has been activated for calls ad¬ dressed to said terminal, even though it is so in reality, and accordingly, the subscriber waits for calls to come to his terminal in vain, since these calls have been transferred elsewhere. In addition to said call transfer facility or call diversion facili¬ ty, being a facility by means of which incoming calls can be transferred to an exchange, to a call request service implemented in connection with the exchange or to another subscriber number, there are other ser¬ vices implemented by the exchange and to be activated for the subscriber, whereby it is of utmost impor¬ tance for the subscriber using the subscriber unit to know of an activation, i.e. a status, of these ser¬ vices. A further telecommunications service of this kind is a call restriction facility restricting out¬ going and incoming calls. Call restrictions are e.g. a barring of long-distance and international calls and a barring of incoming or outgoing calls. Such a call restriction may for instance be activated if the subscriber has not paid his telephone bill. Another example of the call restriction facility may be a fa¬ cility preventing the subscriber from using his ter- minal for other purposes than for emergency calls. Except for these above-mentioned facilities, a large number of other facilities and telecommunications services to be provided by means of these facilities exist or are developed just now, whereby the sub- scriber using the terminal should know of the activa¬ tion or status of these services as far as his parti¬ cular terminal is concerned. According to the prior art, various attempts have been made to satisfy the above need of the sub- scriber to be informed of which telecommunications services and associated facilities have been activat¬ ed for the terminal used by the subscriber. One solution according to the prior art is to store the data of the telecommunications services activated for the subscriber, i.e. of the facilities activated for the terminal concerned, in a memory contained in the terminal, which memory is maintained by means of battery backup e.g. during the time a battery of the terminal is changed. A drawback of this solution is that, because the control of status data, i.e. service data, and facility data is distri¬ buted both to the exchange and the terminal of the radio system, the terminal may contain data of the services and facilities activated for the terminal or the subscriber which are different from the data con¬ tained in the very exchange of the radio system. This is the case for instance when the radio telephone is serviced, when some previous user of the radio tele¬ phone activates or deactivates facilities or services and at the end of battery backup. Then the latter user of the radio telephone may for instance believe that the call transfer facility is not activated, even if this facility actually is activated and the calls addressed to the subscriber unit are trans- ferred to some other receiver. Moreover, such a bat- tery backup does not work in all situations and it is also problematic, if one terminal operates in the area of several radio networks alternately. Another prior art solution to how the user of a terminal can be informed of the telecommunications services or facilities activated for the subscriber concerned is a solution according to which the sub¬ scriber may at his own manual request receive from a mobile telephone exchange a speech message indicating which facilities have been activated for the terminal concerned. Such a method is used by the NMT (Nordic Mobile Telephone System) system, for instance. A drawback of this solution is that personal activity is always required of the subscriber using the ter- minal, because it presupposes that the user remembers and uses actively and independently this manual oper¬ ation, by which the user requests the exchange to give the speech message. Unfortunately, operations performed by the user himself are dependent on human factors and thus incomplete. The object of this invention is to avoid the above-mentioned problems occurring in the solutions according to the prior art. Consequently, the object of the present invention is to offer the user of the radio terminal, i.e. the subscriber, a method, by means of which the subscriber is informed of the fa¬ cilities activated for the terminal used by the sub¬ scriber. This novel method according to the invention is characterized in that facility data for a given sub¬ scriber station are read from the subscriber data base of the radio system and that said data are sent as a facility data message through a base station via a radio path to the subscriber station, and the sub- scriber station receives said message containing the facility data and presents these data to the sub¬ scriber. The invention is based on the idea that an in¬ formation of the facilities activated for the sub- scriber unit concerned are included in a signalling going to a radio terminal, i.e. a subscriber station. Upon receiving the signalling message containing that information, the subscriber terminal discloses the information of the services activated for the ter- minal to the subscriber. An advantage of such a method is that it elimi¬ nates the problems occurring in the solutions accord¬ ing to the prior art. In practice, the solution of the invention gives a subscriber of a radio terminal a possibility of knowing which facilities are acti¬ vated in an exchange of a radio system or a subscrib¬ er data base of the exchange for the terminal used by the subscriber. Accordingly, the data contained in the subscriber data base in the exchange of the radio system or in connection therewith are utilized auto¬ matically in such a way that better services are pro¬ duced for the subscribers of the radio system. By means of an automatic data transmission performed by the system according to the invention, the data indi- eating the facilities activated for the terminal, the previous manual request of the user for activated fa¬ cilities can be replaced by an automatical operation performed by a computer present in the system, with¬ out the user, i.e. the subscriber, having to remember it. In the following the invention will be explain¬ ed in more detail with reference to the attached drawings, in which Figure 1 shows a block diagram of a situation according to the prior art, in which a subscriber station is not informed of the facilities activated therefor, Figure. 2 shows a block diagram of a situation according to the invention, in which the subscriber station is informed of the facilities activated therefor. Figure 1 shows a block diagram of a situation according to the prior art, in which a subscriber station MS 106 does not obtain information of the facilities activated therefor. An information Y 103 of the facilities activated for the subscriber sta¬ tion MS 106 is stored in a data base 102 of the radio system. The data base may exist in connection with an exchange 101 or somewhere else within the range of the radio system. The data base 102 is typically a subscriber data base containing subscriber data of the subscribers belonging to the system. In the solu¬ tion according to the prior art, the information Y 103 of the facilities activated for the subscriber station MS 106 is not transmitted automatically through a base station BTS 105 via a radio path 107 to the subscriber station MS 106, which is a mobile station or a radio terminal or a radio telephone. At the subscriber's, i.e. the user's, command, the sub- scriber station 106 may certainly request for infor¬ mation of the facilities determined therefor, but such a request is manual and requires a measure taken by the user himself. Operations performed by the user himself are dependent on the carefulness and the mem- ory of the user, and furthermore, such operations are laborious and insecure. Figure 2 shows a block diagram of a situation according to the invention, in which an information Y of the facilities activated for a subscriber station MS 206 is transmitted thereto. These facilities can be activated by an exchange of the radio system com¬ manded by a radio terminal and e.g. its user, by the exchange of the radio system independently or by some other entity in connection with the radio system. In the method of the invention, subscriber data of the subscriber and the terminal and an information Y 203 of the facilities activated for said subscriber/ter¬ minal, i.e. the facility data Y 203 of said subscrib¬ er/terminal, are stored in a data base 202. In the invention, the exchange requests the data base lo¬ cated either in the exchange or within the reach of telecommunication therefrom for the information Y of the facilities activated for the subscriber MS and sends this information as a facility data message through a base station BTS 205 via a radio path 207 to the subscriber station MS 206. The subscriber sta¬ tion discloses the received facility data Y 208 by means of a user interface to the subscriber, who is able to change his behaviour on account of these data. The facility data message contains at least the following data, which may be arranged in blocks: 1. a message identifier indicating that the message is a facility data message, 2. a subscriber number indicating to which sub- scriber said message is addressed, 3. facility data desired, i.e. status data of the services or facilities activated for the sub¬ scriber indicated by the subscriber number, 4. other possible parameters and other informa- tion, e.g. time by the clock and the time during which said services are valid. In the following is presented a practical ex¬ ample of an information given by means of a facility data message, by which a subscriber is informed of a call transfer service activated for this subscriber. An information of whether a call transfer facility is activated for the subscriber and possibly also the subscriber number (telephone number) to which the calls are transferred are then transmitted as a fa- cility data message to the subscriber. The user of the radio telephone typically transfers his incoming calls to another subscriber number, e.g. to a fixed telephone network, by switching off the current of his radio telephone, for instance when he leaves the car in which the mobile phone is located. The infor¬ mation of the call transfer is stored in a data base in connection with the exchange of the radio tele¬ phone system. Due to this call transfer facility ac¬ tivated for the subscriber, all calls coming to the subscriber are then transferred to the new number. Because the system sends the facility data message to the terminal of the subscriber, the terminal now re¬ ceives the information of the call transfer activated for the subscriber/terminal (or of some other acti- vated facility, correspondingly) and transmits this information by means of a user interface of the radio terminal to the subscriber. The user interface may be a display, for instance, but it may also be some other manner of informing the subscriber of the faci- lity activated. A facility data message may be transmitted to the radio terminal of the subscriber when the sub¬ scriber tries to use a service or facility which is prevented (i.e. which has not been activated or which has been prevented by activation) or a service having a logical connection with activation data of some fa¬ cility. Further, a facility data message may be transmitted to the terminal of the subscriber under time control of some kind at regular or irregular in- tervals or when there is suitable free signalling capacity on the radio path. Moreover, a status data message may be transmitted to the terminal of the subscriber when either the subscriber or the terminal of the subscriber requests for facility data concern- ing the subscriber or the terminal of the subscriber by sending a facility data request message to the radio system, typically to the exchange of the sys¬ tem. Additionally, a transmission of facility data to the subscriber stations may take place after the ex- change of the radio system has been informed by means of signalling of the fact that the subscriber data of the subscriber station has been location updated for example when the subscriber station has entered the radio system or when the subscriber station enters the radio system. The method according to the invention is in¬ tended to be implemented in practice in such a way that the exchange of the radio system comprises a software performing the transmission of data to the radio terminal either responsive to its own time con¬ trol or responsive to requests made by the subscriber or to an attempt of the subscriber to use some ser¬ vice/facility. Additionally, the software shall be capable of controlling the subscriber data stored in the data base and of searching for correct data therein, if needed. Further, the exchange of the ra¬ dio system has a software implementing a novel kind of signalling between the radio telephone and the exchange. In addition to this, the radio terminal comprises a software, which processes the facility data message sent by the exchange and is capable of presenting the data contained in said message to the user. Moreover, this software shall be capable of setting up a facility data request message, if it is desirable that facility data can be sent to the sub- scriber terminal also at the subscriber's command. New additional data base may possibly be neces¬ sary in connection with the exchange of the radio system for the implementation of the invention, which means that more equipments are needed. It is also possible that the radio terminal is provided with an additional display device, by means of which the sub¬ scriber detects the data of the facilities activated for the subscriber/terminal. Further, this solution may be implemented in such a manner that the data bases controlling the subscriber data are distributed to several exchanges, for which purpose is needed a software controlling the subscriber data bases dis¬ tributed to several exchanges or in connection there- with and the facility data contained therein. The drawings and the description attached thereto are only intended to illustrate the idea of the invention. As to the details, the method of the invention may vary within the scope of the claims. Even though the invention has been described above in connection with radio systems in the first place, the method according to the invention may also be used in other systems of mobile telecommunication.

Claims: Claims: 1. A method in a radio system Figure 2), com¬ prising a subscriber database (202) containing data (Y,203) informing of facilities activated for the subscriber, exchanges (201), base stations (205) and subscriber stations (206), in order to keep the sub¬ scriber stations (206) informed of the facilities activated therefor, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that facility data (Y, 203) for a given subscriber station (206) are read from the subscriber data base (202) of the radio system and that said data (Y, 203) are sent as a facility data message through a base station (205) via a radio path (207) to the sub¬ scriber station (206), and the subscriber station (206) receives said mes¬ sage containing the facility data (Y) and presents these data (Y, 208) to the subscriber. 2. A method according to claim 1, c h a r a c¬ t e r i z e d in that the transmission of the mes¬ sage containing said facility data (Y, 203) occurs when the subscriber station (206) enters the radio system. 3. A method according to claim 1, c h a r a c¬ t e r i z e d in that the transmission of the mes¬ sage containing said facility data (Y, 203) occurs when the subscriber station (206) tries to request the radio system to start some facility, the data of which facility are stored in the subscriber data base (202) as per subscriber. 4. A method according to claim 1, c h a r a c¬ t e r i z e d in that the message containing said facility data (Y, 203) is transmitted at desired in- tervals to the subscriber station (206). 5. A method according to claim 1, c h a r a c¬ t e r i z e d in that the message containing said facility data (Y, 203) is transmitted to the sub¬ scriber station (206) when there is free transfer capacity on the radio path (207) between the base station (205) and the subscriber station (206). 6. A method according to claim 1, c h a r a c¬ t e r i z e d in that the message containing said facility data (Y, 203) is transmitted to the sub- scriber station (206) when the subscriber station (206) requests for a transmission of the facility data (Y, 203) to the subscriber station (206) by sending a facility data request message. 7. A method according to any of the foregoing claims, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that said fa¬ cility data message contains an information (Y, 203) of a call transfer facility activated for the sub¬ scriber (206). 8. A method according to claim 1 to 6, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that said facility data message contains an information (Y, 203) of a call restriction facility activated for the subscriber (206).

Inventors: SUIKKOLA RAUNO, TOEYRYLAE HANNU, SUIKKOLA, RAUNO, TOEYRYLAE, HANNU
Applicants: NOKIA TELECOMMUNICATIONS OY, SUIKKOLA RAUNO, TOEYRYLAE HANNU, SUIKKOLA, RAUNO, TOEYRYLAE, HANNU
Application year: 1994
Main classification: H04M3
IPC codes: H04M3, H04W4, H04W8